Woodstock

This is my first post in the 2010 WordCount Blogathon, or #Blog2010 on Twitter – a challenge to blog every day for a month. If you found me through the Blogathon and this is your first time at Tastee Pudding: welcome!

Today I celebrated my 34th birthday in Woodstock, New York.

The legendary music festival of ’69 actually took place in nearby Bethel, but Woodstock was also quite a hippie haven. A brochure for the town promises a celebration of creativity and the arts, and it’s hard to walk a block without encountering a gallery or some kind of public sculpture. It’s also a place where it’s hard to see where the symbolism of the past ends and authentic modern culture begins. We saw street vendors selling tie-dye:

…as well as Tibetan peace flags, posters for home-brew classes, and a lot of gray-haired people who looked like they probably smoked their share of peace pipes back in the day. There were also young couples walking beagles and boxers, and a home décor store selling items I’ve seen on Etsy.

So far, the most compelling part of Woodstock is the cabin we’re renting:

There’s a claw-foot tub in the living room:

…and this is the view from the bed:

I wrote this blog post at a huge wooden desk in the bedroom, whose beautiful luster is interrupted only by the occasional paint stain, evidence of creativity past. Right now I’m at Joshua’s, a cafe with free wifi where we stopped on the way to dinner so I could post this. And who should we see here but…Scott Ian, of Anthrax, one of Jordan‘s teenage heroes. His other band, Pearl, is playing in town this weekend. Not quite Janis Joplin – a different Pearl…for a different Woodstock.